Ali's target is none other than General Zia ul-Haq, dictator of Pakistan. Enlisting a rag-tag group of conspirators, including his cologne-bathed roommate, a hash-smoking American lieutenant, and a mango-besotted crow, Ali sets his elaborate plan in motion. There's only one problem: the line of would-be Zia assassins is longer than he could have possibly known.

    Historical novel that explodes all the myths that surround Mastani who was the second wife of Peshwa Baji Rao I in Central India in the 1700s.

    In India's Wars, serving Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam seeks to rectify that oversight by giving India's military exploits their rightful place in history. Subramaniam begins India's Wars with a frank call to reinvigorate the study of military history as part of Indian history more generally. Part II surveys the development of the India's army, navy, and air force from the early years of the modern era to 1971. In Parts III and IV, Subramaniam considers conflicts from 1947 to 1962 as well as conflicts with China in 1962 and Pakistan in 1965 and 1971. Part V concludes by assessing these conflicts through the lens of India's ancient strategist, Kautilya, who is revered in India as much as Sun Tzu is in China.Not merely a wide-ranging historical narrative of India's military performance in battle, India's Wars also offers a strategic, operational, and human perspective on the wars fought by independent India's armed forces. Subramaniam highlights possible ways to improve the synergy between the three services, and argues in favor of the declassification of historical material pertaining to national security. The author also examines the overall state of civil-military relations in India, leadership within the Indian armed forces, as well as training, capability building, and other vitally important issues of concern to citizens, the government, and the armed forces. This objective and critical analysis provides policy cues for the reinvigoration of the armed forces as a critical tool of statecraft and diplomacy. Readers will come away from India's Wars with a greater understanding of the international environment of war and conflict in modern India. Laced with veterans' intense experiences in combat operations, and deeply researched and passionately written, it unfolds with surprising ease and offers a fresh perspective on independent India's history.Reviews:"The battle for Goa was an early example of a combined operation for the Indian military, combining land, air, and sea elements. It is one small piece of a growing heritage for that nation, a history that is well told in this book. The work is impressive in its readability and clarity, as the author does not presume any foreknowledge of his subject and strives to make clear a subject relatively unknown in the Western world. The work deftly traces India's military origins in the 20th century." --Military Heritage"Retired Indian Air Vice Marshal Subramaniam, who is now an instructor at the Indian National Defence College, has produced a comprehensive history of India's armed forces and their wars, from the First Indo-Pakistan War in 1947, which was sparked by partition and independence through the Third, sometimes known as the Bangladesh War in 1971…. Subramaniam's treatment of policy, strategy, and operations is very good, and his description of tactical encounters are well written, integrating air, ground, and naval operations as appropriate, and are pretty easy to follow…. India's Wars offers an excellent overview of Indian military history since independence for both the professional military historian or the interested layman." --StrategyPage"The picture India's Wars paints of the evolving Indian military is a flattering one." --Naval War College Review"Air Marshal (Retired) Arjun Subramaniam, in his book India's Wars: A Military History, 1947-1971, narrates an incident in Italy in 1943 that would make any Indian proud of the way the Indian man honoured -- and protected -- women." --The New Indian Express"India's Wars is an eminently readable work on the Indian military and India's experiences with wars over a period of roughly twenty-five years after independence. Given the serious neglect of military history in the understanding of India's contemporary history (post-1947), this is a notable contribution…. Subramaniam has provided us with a useful and thought-provoking book on India's wars until 1971, and one hopes that the next volume on the period after the Bangladesh War will be equally engaging." --H-Asia"[Subramaniam] offers a richly detailed history of India's wars with Pakistan, China, and Portugal as well as a balanced appraisal of India's military wartime performance, highlighting successes and failures." --Military Officer"This book is a good introduction to the subject. It is generally quite detailed when it comes to the IAF…. The author has a definite political and ideological agenda [and] the details are accurate…. Well worth a read." --Brown Pundits"In this turbulent twenty-first century, the rise of India will be critical for understanding global geopolitics. This superb overview of India's military history in the twentieth century is essential to appreciate the role of India in the decades to come." --Adm. James Stavridis, USN (Ret.), sixteenth Supreme Allied Commander, NATO; Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University"India's Wars is a very readable and fascinating book that is not simply a recitation of events, but a work punctuated with insights that can be realized only by someone who participated in the events. Providing views of India's military pioneers not previously available, it also addresses the political interactions that are integral to conflict. This is a timely book yielding understanding of India's military history when India's influence on critical geopolitical events is growing." --Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, USAF (Ret.); Dean of the Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Power Studies"Deftly telescoping six decades of India's conflicts in a single volume, Arjun Subramaniam presents an objective and compelling tri-service narrative which I found hard to put down. He joins a select band of service officers who have, in the tradition of Thucydides, shown the intellectual acumen as well as courage and perseverance to put pen to paper while still in uniform." --Admiral Arun Prakash, Indian Navy, (Ret.), former Chief of Naval Staff and Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee

    Kennedy. But the same week the world stood transfixed by the possibility of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, Kennedy was also consumed by a war that has escaped history’s attention, yet still reverberates significantly today: the Sino-Indian conflict.As well-armed and equipped troops from the People’s Republic of China surged into Indian-held territory in October 1962, Kennedy ordered an emergency airlift of supplies to the Indian army. At the same time, he engaged in diplomatic talks that kept the neighboring Pakistanis out of the fighting. The conflict came to an end with a unilateral Chinese cease-fire, relieving Kennedy of a decision to intervene militarily in support of India.Bruce Riedel, a CIA and National Security Council veteran, provides the first full narrative of this crisis, which played out during the tense negotiations with Moscow over Cuba. He also includes another, nearly forgotten episode of US espionage during the war between India and China: covert US support of Tibetan opposition to Chinese occupation of Tibet. He details how the United States, beginning in 1957, trained and parachuted Tibetan guerrillas into Tibet to fight Chinese military forces. The covert operation to help precipitate the conflict but the United States did not end its support of it until relations between the United States and China were normalized in the 1970s.Riedel tells this story of war, diplomacy, and covert action with authority and perspective. He draws on newly declassified letters between Kennedy and Indian leader Jawaharlal Nehru along with the diaries and memoirs of key players and other sources make this the definitive account of JFK’s forgotten crisis. This is, Riedel writes, Kennedy’s finest hour as you have never read it before.

    This book, essentially an “anarchist history,” is the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making whose author evaluates why people would deliberately and reactively remain stateless. Among the strategies employed by the people of Zomia to remain stateless are physical dispersion in rugged terrain; agricultural practices that enhance mobility; pliable ethnic identities; devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders; and maintenance of a largely oral culture that allows them to reinvent their histories and genealogies as they move between and around states.In accessible language, James Scott, recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies, tells the story of the peoples of Zomia and their unlikely odyssey in search of self-determination. He redefines our views on Asian politics, history, demographics, and even our fundamental ideas about what constitutes civilization, and challenges us with a radically different approach to history that presents events from the perspective of stateless peoples and redefines state-making as a form of “internal colonialism.” This new perspective requires a radical reevaluation of the civilizational narratives of the lowland states. Scott’s work on Zomia represents a new way to think of area studies that will be applicable to other runaway, fugitive, and marooned communities, be they Gypsies, Cossacks, tribes fleeing slave raiders, Marsh Arabs, or San-Bushmen.

    Yet most of us don't understand it, or the violent history still playing out there. In fact, India as we know it didn't exist until the map of the subcontinent was redrawn in the middle of the 20th century--the powerful repercussions of which are still being felt across South Asia.To tell the story of political borders in the subcontinent, Suchitra Vijayan spent seven years travelling India's 9,000-mile land border. Now, in this stunning work of narrative reportage, she shares what she learned on that groundbreaking journey. With profound empathy and a novelistic eye for detail, Vijayan shows us the forgotten people and places in the borderlands and brings us face-to-face with the legacy of colonialism and the stain of extreme violence and corruption. The result is the ground-level portrait of modern India we've been missing.

    Set up to procure Asian goods for British consumers, the Company’s business network spanned Persia, India, China, Indonesia and North America. In the late 1700s, its career took a dramatic turn as the Company lost ground as a trading firm, but founded an empire in India. Why did a merchant firm end up being an empire builder? Why did politics mesh so closely with the conduct of business in this time? This new account of the East India Company answers these questions by taking a fresh look at the world of Indian business. The story fits together many pieces of a vast jigsaw puzzle, and shows how trading in India changed the Company—and how the Company changed Indian business.

    Anand Teltumbde identifies the watershed moments of its journey: from the adoption of a flawed Constitution to the Green Revolution, the OBC upsurge, the rise of regional parties, and up to the nexus of neoliberalism and hindutva in the present day. Joining the dots between a wide range of events on the ground and the prevailing structure of power, he debunks the pieties of state and Constitution, political parties and identitarian rhetoric, to reveal the pernicious energies they have unleashed and their dire impact on India’s most marginalised people, the dalits.The exclusion and disempowerment of dalits emerges as intrinsic to India’s republican system, whether expressed through state policies on education, agriculture and land ownership, or the tacit encouragement of caste embedded in both law and political practice. Here, the carrot of reservations comes with the stick of atrocities. As a politics of symbolism exploits the fissile nature of caste to devitalise India’s poorest whilst appropriating their votes, Teltumbde’s damning analysis also shows progressive politics a way out of the present impasse.Anand Teltumbde is a civil rights activist and a columnist with the Economic & Political Weekly. Among his many books are Dalits: Past, Present and Future, Mahad: The Making of the First Dalit Revolt and The Persistence of Caste: The Khairlanji Murders and India’s Hidden Apartheid. He teaches at the Goa Institute of Management.

    Can General Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler, control the forces that helped create the Taliban in Afghanistan? In this fascinating book, journalist Owen Bennett Jones looks at Pakistan's turbulent past, recounts its recent history, and assesses its future options. A new introduction brings the account fully up to date.

    Lesser known is assassin Nathuram Godse’s motive. Until now, no publication has dealt with this question, except for the naked text of Godse’s own defence speech during his trial. It didn’t save him from the hangman, but still contains substantive arguments against the facile glorification of the Mahatma.Dr Koenraad Elst compares Godse’s case against Gandhi with criticisms voiced in wider circles, and with historical data known at the time or brought to light since. While the Mahatma was extolled by the Hindu masses, political leaders of divergent persuasions who had had dealings with him were less enthusiastic. Their sobering views would have become the received wisdom about the Mahatma if he hadn’t been martyred. Yet, the author also presents some new considerations in Gandhi’s defence from unexpected quarters.

    It surveys the major developments in Indias social, economic and cultural history up to the end of the ancient period and the beginning of the early middle ages and explains the rise and growth of states with reference to their material basis. Special attention has been paid to the elements of change and continuity in society, economy and culture, and to the changing forms of exploitation and consequent social tensions as well as to the role of religion and superstition in society.

    Meets the requirements of the various Universities of India for the LL.B., LL.M., B.A. and M.A. (Political Science) and Competitive examinations held by the Union and State Public Service Commissions. Also indispensable for politicians, journalists, statesmen and administrative authorities. Prescribed in several Universities even for under-graduate courses in Civics. Incorporates all amendments to the Constitution upto 83rd Constitutional Amendment Act 2000. Contains materials, figures and charts not included in any publication so far on the subject. Elaborate comments on separatism in Punjab, Assam & elsewhere.Salient features:* While the Author's Commentary on the Constitution of India and the Shorter Constitution annotate the Constitution Article by Article, primarily from the legal standpoint, the present work offers systematic exposition of the constitutional document in the form of a narrative, properly arranged under logical chapters and topical headings.* It will supply the long felt need for an introductory study on the Constitution for the general readers, politicians as well as students and candidates for the Public Service Commission and other competitive examinations.* It traces the constitutional history of India since the Government of India Act, 1935; analyses the provisions of the present Constitution and explains the inter-relation between its diverse contents. * It gives an account of the working of each of the provisions of the Constitution during its first decade with reference to statutes and decisions wherever necessary, together with a critical estimate of its trends, in a concluding chapter.* The analytical Table of Contents, marginal notes, index and the graphic Tables at the end of the book will serve as admirable aids.* The three Legislative lists have been printed side by side for the convenience of reference.* The change made by the different Constitution Amendment Acts upto the 83rd Amendment and the reorganisation of the States made by various statutes may be seen at a glance.* Without going into excessive detail the footnotes and references have been printed at the end of each Chapter so that the advanced student and the researcher may profit by pursuing those references, after his study of the contents of each chapter.* The status of Jammu and Kashmir and the provisions of its State Constitution have been fully dealt with.

    A land where history, myth and email forwards have come together to create a sense of a glorious past that is awe-inspiring...and also kind of dubious. But that is what happens when your future is uncertain and your present is kind of shitty—it gets embellished until it becomes a totem of greatness and a portent of potential. Sidin Vadukut takes on a complete catalogue of ‘India's Greatest Hits’ and ventures to separate the wheat of fact from the chaff of legend. Did India really invent the zero? Has it truly never invaded a foreign country in over 1,000 years? Did Indians actually invent plastic surgery before those insufferable Europeans? The truth is more interesting—and complicated—than you think.

    60–80 % of the so-called Indus Valley Civilisation sites which have been discovered are not on the banks of the Indus but on the course of the Sarasvati. The drying-out of the river is the most significant factor in the history and migrations of the ancient Indians. With new evidence, the time has come for a significant paradigm shift in Indology. This book breaks new ground to lay the foundation for an authentic Indian history.

    It starts from an introduction to archaeology to basics of Indian History. Overall, the book is to introduce Indian history and how its studied along with explaining its importance in present world. Since the book is for teens and is an introductory literature, its full of interesting graphics and activities appropriate for target audience - 6th standard kids. This book is freely available at http://www.ncert.nic.in/ncerts/textbo... for personal use only.